Wireless
by echoing noise
Summary: What comforts some people is torture to others. -A few lines are enough to haunt the trio for the rest of their lives. DH MOVIE SPOILERS, don't read if you haven't seen it.


SPOILERS FOR THE DH MOVIE! DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN IT!

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**Wireless**

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_"Your parents are dead! You don't _have _a family!"_

The words ring in his ears for a moment, wounding him like his shard of Sirius' mirror is cutting through him.

He's always know his parents were dead, of course he did. That's a fact, and if he's learned anything from Hermione, it's that facts don't lie. His parents are dead, and really, it doesn't bother him anymore. He's made it seventeen long years without them, and he can spend seventeen, twenty, forty more the same way.

No, that part of what Ron says doesn't bother him. What bothers him - bothers him, ha, it's like he's wearing the bloody_ locket _again - is that Ron says he doesn't have a family...

But Ron is his family.

The Dursleys - they left without even looking back, left him in that house all alone, and suddenly, with all the furniture gone, it seemed to big, so empty... and in that cupboard, he remembers standing there, and the little toy soldier that stood all alone. Before, it didn't mean anything - now, it hits him, all the damn symbolism in that little metal soldier.

Ron's been his family for seven years now, he's always thought that, and he thought Ron did too - but maybe - apparently, he doesn't, because if he did, Ron wouldn't have said what he does.

He's always thought that he did have a family, in Ron and all the Weasleys. And he used to, he's pretty sure, but as soon as Ron says he doesn't, he doesn't.

He wants to tell Ron that, but he's just barely keeping hiself from yelling right back at him, so he doesn't. He sort of knows that Ron is only saying what he is because of the locket, but it hurts anyway - because it's just what Ron really thinks, isn't it? It's just what the bad part of Ron has always wanted to say. He knows this, but it cuts into him anyway, a slow, deep cut that digs into him in one cruel, jagged slice. He's left standing while it bleeds out, and he knows that Ron never meant to hurt him so bad, but it does, it does hurt him.

So that's why he doesn't go after Ron, his brother - because they aren't family anymore, so what are they? It's not as if there's a step down from this - you work your way to the top of the staircase, stranger, friend, family - but at the top there's nothing, and all you can do from there is fall.

Ron falls hard, and that's why Harry doesn't go after him. Hermione does, and he worries for her, especially when her voice cuts off so suddenly. She won't have left him too, would she? Hermione doesn't back out on her word, not ever, and she's already given her word to Ron, sort of, that she's staying with him.

But then she comes back in, and he's okay again - there's a little flutter of relief in his chest that her only wounds are tears - but there's still _his wound, _the one thing he has that Ron left behind. He's left clinging to it, hoping that it will heal, and then Ron comes back.

He's so, so happy to see him again, and all of a sudden, there they are, family.

But years later... the words come up in his nightmares, and when he wakes in a jolt lying next to Ginny, there's the haunting sound of the Wireless echoing in his ears.

_"Don't! It comforts him."_

When James plays it too loud, he can't stand it. Ginny doesn't know why the faint murmur of it coming from her eldest son's room bothers him so much when the sound of it when it's right next to him doesn't bother him at all, but he _hates _it. He's always yelling at James to turn it down, or sometimes he gets so frustrated, so freaked out, really, that he just... leaves.

He's never outright said that it bothers him, but she picks up on it. Lily starts playing it in her room at night, quietly, so quietly, and he hates it - he stays up in the kitchen those nights, and he doesn't come up to bed for hours on the bad days, drinking tea after tea and worrying about one thing or another, usually the day after he's had a bad nightmare. Because those still haunt him, the nightmares. She has them too, but for him - for him, they are so much worse.

He sits bolt upright and yells Hermione's name, and the very first time she hears it, well... she's ready to hex him into next week, sans some very vital pieces of himself.

But then the tone clicks in her foggy, tired brain. It's panicked, scared, like someone watching their best friend being run over by the Knight Bus or their home burn down. She never finds out what happened to Hermione, but she knows better to ask. It happens sometimes still, and she knows now to say that he's not in the War or the forest or Malfoy Manor and then he's okay, sort of.

Malfoy Manor, that's another thing - it's ten times worse than the Wireless for him, all three of them, really. None of them will take Lily there to play with Scorpious, (not that she does anymore anyway,) but she knows enough to figure out that whatever happened there wasn't good.

Draco tells her, one day, to 'tell her husband that certain... areas of the Manor have been roped off. He can stop acting like a Hufflepuff now.'

Exact words. She doesn't know why she remembers them, but she does. Not that she ever tells Harry them.

The Wireless, Malfoy Manor, and Hermione - each of them have a meaning different than they did before the War for Harry, and none are good.

_"Who could _ever_ compare you to _Harry Potter_?"_

Sometimes after Harry and Ron fight, Ron plays the Wireless loud, just so it bugs him.

It's sort of just something he does atomatically, but as soon as it clicks on, he remembers how much it sets Harry on end, and he enjoys it, a little: knowing that he can just... set him off so quickly, with something so innocent. The Wireless gives him, Ron Weasley, power over the great _Harry Potter._

It's cruel, he knows, but he does it anyway. And yes, he and Harry still fight. It's always, almost, anyway, over Aurorer bussiness, but it's enough to leave him stewing for a few hours. And if Harry's stupid enough to stick around afterwards... then on goes the Wireless, blasting down the many levels of the Burrow, just because he knows it'll get back at his best friend.

It's cruel and Ron only does it twice, but it's two times that he shouldn't have. Because it's only a little while before he realizes that no matter the fight, it's not worth it, of course it isn't.

The first time was only a little while after the War, maybe a month or two. He can't remember what the fight was about, but he remembers going upstairs and turning it on. At first, it's just because he wants something to drown out the thoughts running through his head, but then he realizes that it would _kill _Harry if he turned it up so his best friend would be able to hear it, barely, like he used to.

He doesn't expect the reaction that comes. Harry's in the room in an instant, wild-eyed and wand clutched in his hand. "Ron," he says, and the sound of his voice is panicked and scared and lethal, ready to fight and kill if he has to. "Ron, where are the..."

He blinks and seems to realize that nothing's happening, all that's in the room with them is Ron's bed and the Chudley Cannon posters and all of Ron's other things and... the Wireless.

"Mate," Ron says sarcastically, still bitter from the fight. "It's just the Wireless. There aren't any bloody Snatchers or Death Eaters. The War's over."

Harry stares at him with those unnatural green eyes. "Turn the Wireless off, Ron."

"No."

"Ron." Harry's scary when he wants to be, with those gleaming eyes, but Ron's seen death too, and he knows Harry.

"It's the _Wireless_, mate. Get over it, it's nothing."

Apparently he's a good liar now - the Snatchers must have taught him something, after all - because Harry looks sorry and embarressed immediatly. But the thought of being anything like the Snatchers or even Draco, ew, sickens him, so he goes back on his word and snaps the radio off.

Harry relaxes visibly, but his wand is still clutched tight in his fist, his fingertips white. "I thought... I thought it was Potterwatch. Dunno why..."

Ron feels guilty, incredibly guilty, and gives up his anger, all of it. "Yeah, um, sorry."

Harry just leaves, before any silence can hang over them, and Ron can hear him apologizing downstairs, thinking he heard something, but it was nothing, just the radio...

Just the radio, ha. Ron's made it so much more than that. He's hurt his friend, his brother, and he can't take that back, no matter how much he tries. It's days like this that he realizes that he doesn't want Harry's life, no matter how wonderful it sometimes seems.

Lily complains to him one time, about how 'Dad' hates the radio, and won't let it play if he doesn't think anyone's listening to it enough. Ron says nothing, merely grunting in response (because Lily doesn't really want to talk to him, anyway, she just wants to _talk - _bloody girls, always the same - ) but there's the wave of guilt, always the wave of guilt.

Mum invites them all over for dinner, like she does so often, too often, but someone turns on the Wireless this time.

"Oh, shut that thing off," Ron says, like it's something that will fix what he's done. And of course it won't, but Harry looks a little less like War-Harry when it's switched off, a little less like Sirius-is-dead-Harry and a little more like Ginny's-pregnant Harry, just by the tiniest bit.

_"What does he expect to hear - good news?"_

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_Well, I thought I'd publish something for the release of DH. I know I probably misspelled a lot of stuff, but... lemme off the hook just this once? I got a tooth pulled yesterday and it still hurts really bad because of all the other stuff they did to my mouth, and it hurt so bad this morning that i basically skipped two classes to go cry in the bathroom. yeah... fun. As I've said many times in the last few hours: the world hates me. So... lay off. :) Sorry._

_Anyway, DH was a-MAZ-ing. Like. Insane. I tried to get all the quotes right, but if you think one's wrong, go ahead and say so._


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